5th circuit rules against Biden administration for social media contact

An American flag flies on top of the White House, Feb. 12, 2022, in Washington. A federal appeals court Friday, Sept. 8, 2023, significantly whittled down a lower court’s order curbing Biden administration communications with social media companies over controversial content about COVID-19 and other issues.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an injunction restricting how the government can communicate with social media companies, which the Biden administration warns will stymie efforts to counter false and misleading claims about elections, public health and other important topics.

The panel of judges, all GOP nominees, say that the administration’s efforts to flag what it considered to be false and harmful content about COVID, the 2020 election and other topics that violated the social media companies’ policies likely amount to a violation of the First Amendment. The court found that Biden Administration officials coerced and threatened the social media companies to take down content.

“The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government,” a three-judge panel wrote. “The harms that radiate from such conduct extend far beyond just the Plaintiffs; it impacts every social-media user.”

Still, the order limits the scale of the injunction, which had previously included the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services. Today’s order applies only to the White House, the surgeon general, the CDC and FBI.

The preliminary